1. Field of the Invention
One aspect of the invention relates to a mobile apparatus having a communication function and performing periodic terminal information processing especially in a standby state, a power saving control method in the mobile apparatus and a computer-readable medium.
2. Description of the Related Art
Reduction in size and weight of individual components has been regarded as necessary with the increasing demand for reduction in size and weight of mobile apparatuses in recent years. Most of currently widespread mobile apparatuses use built-in batteries as power supply sources thereof. These batteries are no exception to the demand for reduction in size and weight of individual components. In most cases, reduction in size and weight of a battery however brings about reduction in capacity of the battery, so that reduction in capacity of the battery brings about reduction in operating time of the battery. Moreover, there is an increasing demand for elongation in battery-operating time of a mobile apparatus in order to save labor for charging the battery.
For example, reduction in power consumption is a necessary and essential factor to elongate the battery-operating time of a cellular phone which is one of mobile apparatuses. To take one example, electric power consumed in communication is reduced by widening the time interval for communication between a Bluetooth terminal and the cellular phone in accordance with the time interval for reception of incoming information from a wireless communication base station (see JP-A-2007-166071, for instance).
The cellular phone consumes electric power due to various operations such as communication with the wireless base station, processing of applications, etc. Especially, power consumption in a standby state has a direct relation to the operable time of the cellular phone. There is an increasing demand particularly for reduction in power consumption in the standby state because power consumption in the standby state is an important factor for consideration of reduction in power consumption of the cellular phone. To take one example, LED blinking in the cellular phone in the standby state is controlled by a low-frequency clock generator without interposition of a controller to thereby reduce a processing load imposed on the controller to consequently reduce electric power consumed by the controller (see JP-A-2003-134039, for instance).
The cellular phone in the standby state periodically checks various kinds of information including internal information such as battery voltage level information and external information such as time information, electric field intensity information, push message information, etc. acquired from the outside by wireless communication, sends the checked information to the controller and displays the necessary of the checked information on a display. The push message information includes Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) push message information, Digital Rights Management (DRM) information, casting information, and weather information transmitted from a radio wave base station, etc.
Electric power is consumed whenever such information is checked. Electric power is further consumed due to information processing of the controller whenever the checked information is sent to the controller. Because the cellular phone in the standby state performs checking and sending of these kinds of information periodically, there is a problem that power consumption for checking and sending of these kinds of information results in shortening the operating time of the cellular phone.
There has recently arrived a cellular phone with a so-called power saving mode in which power consumption is reduced by switching off a display when a user does not use the cellular phone in the standby state.
The cellular phone with a power saving mode according to the related art is however inefficient because information to be displayed on the display is checked periodically at short time intervals regardless of switching-off of the display in the power saving mode.